OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY CREATES PROFOUND IMPACTS ON CLIENT AND PATIENT LIVES
Margeaux Bartholomew-Carle
Occupational Therapist &
Chief Executive Officer, Ardant
PEOPLE IN HEALTH CARE
Filmed in Adelaide, South Australia | December 2024
In Australia, access to allied health services such as occupational therapy is increasingly challenging. Barriers like long wait times affect over 600,000 National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and 1.5 million aged care participants. With both cohorts expected to grow exponentially in coming years, the pressure on an already stretched system is set to increase.
Australian Health Journal met with one Occupational Therapist who encourages those entering the profession to embrace continuous learning and seek mentorship to maximise their impact on clients’ lives. Through her company she has a nation-wide mission to transform client access to allied health services like occupational therapy using artificial intelligence (AI).
Margeaux Bartholomew-Carle is an Adelaide based registered Occupational Therapist and the Founder and CEO of Ardant.
Throughout her career, Margeaux has worked in various settings, including aged care, disability, assistive technology, prescription, and mental health. This diverse experience has deepened her understanding of the different needs among client groups.
A significant turning point came when she worked as a solo practitioner and realised that the heavy administrative burden often kept her from important family moments, especially while her father was in the hospital with advanced prostate cancer. This experience motivated her to establish Ardant, focused on enabling OTs to prioritise client care over administrative tasks.
Under her leadership, Ardant has created an all-in-one online practice management platform designed to reduce administrative burdens for independent occupational therapists across Australia, ultimately enhancing access to OT services and improving client outcomes.
Margeaux believes that the role of occupational therapists is gaining recognition, particularly with the introduction of the NDIS, but acknowledges there are persistent misconceptions about the profession. To raise awareness, she advocates for targeted campaigns to educate GPs, health professionals, and the public about the value of OT in primary healthcare.
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Allied Health Building Leadership Experience in Tasmania
A notable program run by Hospitals South is the ABLE program, or Allied Health Building Leadership Experience. This program was created to address the challenge of allied health professionals being seen as a single entity, rather than as individual disciplines, when it comes to leadership and management opportunities. The program is delivered entirely internally, with seminars presented by senior staff and mentorship opportunities for participants to become more effective representatives of allied health in meetings and working groups.
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Analogy of the system, rather than the ED front door
“The problem of blockages shows up in ambulance ramping and long wait times, but this is a complex issue requiring whole-of-health system solutions,” according to Professor Hugh Grantham, Chair of Emergency Medicine Foundation in an interview with Australian Health Journal.
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Australasian College of Paramedicine makes case for multi-disciplinary care
Despite being seen primarily as emergency responders, paramedics have long been providing care in the primary care space. As such, their increased involvement in primary and urgent care is a natural progression that can lead to improved health outcomes for communities. Urgent care clinics, which treat non-life-threatening injuries and illnesses, have been a recent introduction. However, when these clinics were initially proposed, paramedics were left out of the opportunity, despite being experts in urgent, acute, unplanned, and unscheduled care. They work in these types of situations every day in the ambulance service and should be utilised in these clinics to improve patient outcomes. Working as part of multidisciplinary teams with doctors and nurses can further enhance the outcomes for local communities.
